Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/167

 *Thetr law of retaliation.

becaufe they were not only the chief fupport of the French army, in fpoil- ing fo many of their warriors by the power of their ugly ark, before they conquered them ; but were delivered over to the fire, before they entered into battle.

When I was on my way to the Chikkafah, at the Okchai, in the year 1745, the con duel: of the Mufkohge Indians was exactly the fame with regard to a Cheerake {tripling, whofe father was a white man, and mother an half-breed, regardlefs of the prefiing entreaties and very high offers of the Englifh traders, they burned him in their ufual manner. This feemS to be copied from that law which exprefly forbad the redeeming any de voted perfons, and ordered that they mould be furely put to death, Lev. xxvii. 29. This precept had evidently a reference to the law of retaliation. Saul in a fuperftitious and angry mood, wanted to have mur dered or facrificed to God his favourite fon Jonathan, becaufe when he was fainting he tafted fome honey which cafually fell in his way, juft after he had performed a prodigy of martial feats in behalf of Ifrael : but the gra titude, and reafon of the people, prevented him from perpetrating that horrid murder. If devoting to death was of divine extraction, or if God delighted in human facrifices, the people would have been criminal for daring to oppofe the divine law, which was not the cafe. Such a law if taken in an extenfive and literal fenfe, is contrary to all natural reafon and religion, and confequently in a ftric~l fenfe, could not be enjoined by a be nevolent and merciful God j who commands us to dojuftice and (hew mercy to the very beafls ; not to muzzle the ox while he is treading out the grain ; nor to infnare the bird when performing her parental offices. " Are ye not of more value than many fparrows ?'*

The Indians ufe no ftated ceremony in immolating their devoted captives, although it is the fame thing to the unfortunate victims, what form their butcherers ufe. They are generally facrificed before their conquerors fee off for war with their ark and fuppofed holy things. And fometimes the Indians devote every one they meet in certain woods, or paths, to be killed there, except their own people ; this occafioned the cowardly Cheerake iri the year 1753, to kill two white men on the Chikkafah war-path, which leads from the country of the Mufkohge. And the Shawanoh Indians who

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